Life Between Death and Rebirth

Schmidt Number: S-2642

On-line since: 27th October, 2004

III

Man's Journey Through the Planetary Spheresand the Significance of a Knowledge of Christ

Hanover, November 18, 1912

We shall
begin this study by considering what we call human consciousness.
What is human consciousness? In the first place, we can say that in
the sleeping state — from the time of going to sleep in the
evening until waking next morning — we have no consciousness.
Nobody in possession of his five senses, however, doubts that he
exists when he goes to sleep, and loses consciousness. If he had any
such doubt he would be holding the utterly senseless view that during
sleep everything he experiences perishes and must come into being
anew the next morning. Anyone who does not hold this senseless view
is convinced that his existence continues during sleep. All the same,
he has no consciousness.

During sleep we have no mental pictures, ideas, desires, impulses,
passions, no pain or suffering — for if pain becomes so intense
that sleep is prevented, it stands to reason that consciousness is
present. Anyone who can distinguish between sleeping and waking can
also understand what consciousness is. Consciousness is what enters a
man's soul again every morning when he wakes from sleep. Ideas,
mental pictures, emotions, passions, sufferings, and so on —
all this enters again into the soul in the morning. Now what is it
that specially characterizes the consciousness of man? It is the fact
that everything a man can have in his consciousness is accompanied by
the experience of the “I.” No mental image of which you
could not think, I picture this to myself; no feeling of which
you could not say, I feel; no pain of which you could not say
I suffer, would be a genuine experience of your soul.
Everything you experience must be linked, and indeed it is, with the
concept “I.” Yet you are aware that this link with the
concept “I” only begins at a certain age in life. At
about the age of three, when a child begins to have the experience,
he no longer says, “Carl speaks,” or “Mary speaks,”
but “I speak.” Knowledge of the “I” therefore
is kindled for the first time during childhood. Now let us ask “How
does knowledge of the ‘I’ gradually awaken in the child?”

This question shows that apparently simple things are not so easily
answered, although the answer may seem to lie very near at hand. How
does the child pass out of the ego-filled ideas and mental pictures?
Anyone who genuinely studies the life of childhood can understand how
this happens. A simple observation can convince everyone how
ego-consciousness develops and becomes strong in a child. Suppose he
knocks his head against the corner of a table. If you observe closely
you will find that the feeling of “I” is intensified
after such a thing happens. In other words, the child becomes aware
of himself, is brought nearer to a knowledge of self. Of course, it
need not always amount to an actual injury or scratch. Even when the
child puts his hand on something there is an impact on a small scale
that makes him aware of himself. You will have to conclude that a
child would never develop ego-consciousness if resistance from the
world outside did not make him aware of himself. The fact that there
is a world external to himself makes possible the unfolding of
ego-consciousness, the consciousness of the “I.”

At a certain point in his life this consciousness of the “I”
dawns in the child, but what has been going on up to this point does
not come to an end. It is simply that the process is reversed. The
child has developed ego-consciousness by becoming aware that there
are objects outside himself. In other words, he separates himself
from them. Once this ego-consciousness has developed it continues to
come in contact with things. Indeed it must do so perpetually. Where
do the impacts take place? An entity that contacts nothing can have
no knowledge of itself, not, at least, in the world in which we live!
The fact is that from the moment ego-consciousness arises, the “I”
impacts its own inner corporeality, begins to impact its own body
inwardly. To picture this you need only think of a child waking up
every morning. The ego and the astral body pass into the physical and
etheric bodies and the ego impacts them. Now even if you only dip
your hand in water and move it along, there is resistance wherever
your hand is in contact with the water. It is the same when the ego
dives down in the morning and finds its own inner life playing around
it. During the whole of life the ego is within the physical and
etheric bodies and impacts them on all sides, just as when you splash
your hand in water you become aware of your hand on all sides. When
the ego plunges down into the etheric body and the physical body is
comes up against resistance everywhere, and this continues through
the whole of life. Throughout his life the man must plunge down into
his physical and etheric bodies every time he wakes. Because of this,
continual impacts take place between the physical and etheric bodies
on the one side and the ego and astral body on the other. The
consequence is that the entities involved in the impact are worn away
— ego and astral body on the one side, physical and etheric
bodies on the other. Exactly the same thing happens as when there is
continual pressure between two objects. They wear each other away.
This is the process of aging, of becoming worn out, that sets in
during the course of man's life, and it is also the reason why
he does as a physical being.

Just think of it. If we had no physical body, no etheric body, we
could not maintain our ego-consciousness. True, we might be able to
unfold such consciousness, but we could not maintain it. To do this
we must always be impacting our own inner constitution. The
consequence of this is the extraordinarily important fact that the
development of our ego is made possible by destroying our own being
If there were no impact between the members of our being, we could
have no ego-consciousness. When the question is asked, “What is
the purpose of destruction, of aging, of death?” the answer
must be that it is in order that man may evolve that
ego-consciousness may develop to further stages. If we could not die,
that is the radical form of the process, we could not be truly “man.”

If we ponder deeply about the implications of this, occultism can
give us the following answer. To live as men we need physical body,
etheric body, astral body and ego. In human life as it is at present,
we need these four members. But if we are to attain
ego-consciousness, we must destroy them. We must acquire these
members time and time again and then destroy them. Hence many earthly
lives are necessary in order to make it possible for human bodies to
be destroyed again and again. Thereby we are enabled to develop to
further stages as conscious human beings.

Now in our life on earth there is only one member of our being whose
development we can work at in the real sense, and that is our ego.
What does it mean to work at the development of the “I?”
To answer this question we must realize what it is that makes this
work necessary. Suppose a man goes to another and says to him, “You
are wicked.” If this is not the case the man has told an
untruth. What is the consequence of the ego's having uttered an
untruth such as this? The consequence is that from this moment the
worth of the ego is less than it was before the utterance was made.
That is the objective consequence of the immoral deed. Before
uttering an untruth our worth is greater than it is afterwards. For
all time to come and in all spheres, for all eternity the worth of
our ego is less as the result of such a deed.
But during the life between birth
and death a certain means is at our disposal. We can always make
amends for having lessened the worth of our ego; we can invalidate
the untruth. To the one we have called wicked we can confess, “I
erred; what I said is not true,” and so on. In doing this we
restore worth to our ego and compensate for the harm done. In the
case where our ego is involved it is still within our power during
life to make the necessary adjustment. If, for example, we ought to
have acquired knowledge of something but have forgotten all about it,
our ego has lost worth, but if we make efforts we can recall it to
memory and thus compensate for the harm done. To sum up, we can
lessen the worth of our ego but we can also augment it. This faculty
to correct a member of our being, to rectify its errors in such a way
as to further its development, we possess in respect of the ego.

Man's consciousness does not, however, extend directly to his
astral and etheric nature, and it extends far less to his physical
nature. Although perpetual destruction of these members is taking
place through the whole course of life, we do not know how to rectify
it. Man has the power to repair the harm done to the ego, to adjust a
moral defect or defect of memory, but he has no power over what is
continually being destroyed in his astral, etheric and physical
bodies. These three bodies are being impaired all the time, and as we
live on constant attacks are being made upon them. We work at the
development of the ego, for if we did not do so during the whole of
life between birth and death, no progress would be made. We cannot
work as consciously at the development of our astral, etheric or
physical body as we work at the development of our ego. Yet what is
all the time being destroyed in those three bodies must be made good.
In the time between death and a new birth we must again acquire in
the right form — as astral body, etheric body and physical body
— what we have destroyed. It must be possible during this time
for what was previously destroyed to be repaired. This can only
happen if something beyond our power works upon us. It is quite
obvious that if we do not possess magical powers it will not be
possible for us to procure an astral body when we are dead. The
astral body must be created for us out of the Great World, the
Macrocosm.

We can now understand the question, “Where is the destruction
we have caused in our astral body repaired?” We need a proper
body when we are born again into the new bodily existence. Where are
the forces that repair the astral body to be found in the universe?
We might look for these forces on the earth with every kind of
clairvoyance, yet we would never find them there. If it depended
entirely on the earth, a man's astral body could never be
repaired. The materialistic belief that all the conditions needed for
human existence are to be found on the earth is utterly mistaken.
Man's home is not only on the earth. True observation of the
life between death and a new birth reveals that the forces man needs
in order to repair the astral body lie in Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, that is, in the stars belonging to the planetary
system. The forces emanating from these heavenly bodies must all work
at the repair of our astral body, and if we do not get the forces
from there, we cannot have an astral body. What does that mean? It
means that after death, and it is also the case in the process of
initiation, we must go out of the physical body together with the
forces of our astral body. This astral body expands into the
universe. Whereas we are otherwise contracted into a small point in
the universe, after death our whole being expands into it. Our life
between death and new birth is nothing but a process of drawing from
the stars the forces we need in order that the member we have
destroyed during life can be restored. So it is from the stars that
we actually receive the forces which repair our astral body.

In the domain of occultism — using the word in its true sense —
investigation is difficult and full of complications. Suppose a man
with good sight goes to some district in Switzerland, climbs a high
mountain and then, when he has come down again, gives you an accurate
description of what he has seen. You can well imagine that if he goes
to the district again and climbs higher up the same mountain, he will
describe what he has seen from a different vantage point. Through
descriptions given from different vantage points it is obvious that
an increasingly accurate and complete idea of the landscape will be
obtained. Now people are apt to believe that if someone has become
clairvoyant, he knows everything! It is by no means so. In the
spiritual world, investigation always has to be gradual — ”bit
by bit,” as it were. Even in respect to things that have been
investigated with great exactitude, new discoveries can be made all
the time. During the last two years it has been my task to
investigate even more closely than before the conditions of life
between death and rebirth, and I want to tell you now about the
findings of this recent research.

You will of course realize that true understanding is possible only
for those who can penetrate deeply into such a subject, those whose
hearts and minds are ready for a study of this kind. In a single
lecture it cannot be expected that everything will be proved and
substantiated. If what has been said in the course of time is
patiently compared and collated, it will be found that nowhere in the
domain of the occultism studied here is there anything that does not
fit in with the rest.

In the recent investigations of the life between death and a new
birth the conditions prevailing during that period came very clearly
to light. To the eyes of the spirit it is disclosed that the human
being on the earth between birth and death, contracted as he is into
the smallest possible space, emerges from it when he lays aside his
physical body and expands farther and farther out into the universe.
Having passed through the gate of death he grows stage by stage out
into the planetary spheres. First of all, he expands as far as the
area marked by the orbit of the Moon; the sphere indicated by the
position of the Moon then becomes his outermost boundary. When that
point has been reached, kamaloca is at an end. Continuing to expand,
he grows into the sphere formed by the orbit of Venus. Then as his
magnitude increases, his outermost boundary is marked by the apparent
course of the Sun. We need not here concern ourselves with the
Copernican theory of the universe. We need only picture the
surrounding spheres as they were described in the Düsseldorf
lectures on the Spiritual Hierarchies. Thus as man ascends into the
spiritual worlds he expands into the planetary system, first into the
sphere of the Moon, and ultimately into the outermost sphere, that of
Saturn. All this is necessary in order that he shall come into
contact with those forces needed for his astral body, which can be
received only from the planetary system.

A difference becomes apparent when different individuals are
observed. Suppose we observe a man after death whose bearing
throughout life was morally good and who has therefore taken with him
through the gate of death a moral disposition of soul. Such a man may
be compared with another, for instance, who has taken with him
through death a less moral tenor of soul. This makes a great
difference, and it becomes evident when the men in question pass into
the sphere of the forces of Mercury. What form does this difference
take? With the means of perception at his disposal after the period
of kamaloca is over, a man becomes aware of those who were near him
in life and who predeceased him. Are these beings connected with him?
True, he meets them all. He lives together with them after death, but
there is a difference in how he lives together with those with whom
he was connected on earth. The difference is determined by whether
the man brought with him through death a greater or lesser moral
disposition of soul. If he lacked a moral sense in life, he does come
together with members of his family and with his friends, but his own
nature creates a kind of barrier that prevents him from reaching the
other beings. A man with an immoral disposition becomes a hermit
after death, an isolated being who always has a kind of barrier
around him and cannot get through it to the other beings into whose
sphere he has passed. But a soul with a moral disposition, a soul
whose ideas are the outcome of purified will, becomes a sociable
spirit and invariably finds the bridges and connections with the
beings in whose sphere he is living. Whether we are isolated or
sociable spirits is determined by our moral or immoral disposition of
soul.

Now this has important consequences. A sociable spirit, one who is
not enclosed in the shell of his own being, but can make contact with
other beings in his sphere, is working fruitfully for the progress of
evolution and of the whole world. An immoral man who after his death
becomes a hermit, an isolated spirit, is working at the destruction
of the world. He makes holes, as it were, in the texture of the
universe commensurate with the degree of his immorality and
consequent isolation. The effect of the immoral deeds of such a man
is for him, torment; for the world, destruction.

A moral disposition of soul is therefore already of great
significance shortly after the period of kamaloca. It also determines
destiny for the next, the Venus period. A different category of ideas
also comes into consideration then, ideas a man has evolved during
life and that concern him when he enters the spiritual world. The
ideas and conceptions are of a religious character. If religion has
been a link between the transitory and the eternal, the life of soul
in the Venus sphere after death is different from what it is if there
has been no such link. Again, whether we are sociable or isolated,
hermit-like spirits depends upon whether we were or were not of a
religious turn of mind during life on earth. After death an
irreligious soul feels as though enclosed in a capsule, a prison.
True, such a soul is aware that there are beings around him, but he
feels as though he were in a prison and unable to reach them. Thus,
for example, the members of the Monistic Union, inasmuch as with
their barren, materialistic ideas they have excluded all religious
feeling, will not be united in a new community or union after death,
but each of them will be confined in his own prison. Naturally, this
is not meant as an attack upon the Monistic Union. It is merely a
question of making a certain fact intelligible.

In the life on earth materialistic ideas are an error, a fallacy. In
the realm of the spirit they are a reality. Ideas, which here in the
physical world merely have the effect of making us shut ourselves
off, incarcerate us in the realm of the spirit, make us prisoners of
our own astrality. Through an immoral conception of life we deprive
ourselves of forces of attraction in the Mercury sphere. Through an
irreligious disposition of soul we deprive ourselves of forces of
attraction in the Venus sphere. We cannot draw from this sphere the
forces we need; which means that in the next incarnation we shall
have an astral body that in a certain respect is imperfect.

Here you see how karma takes shape, the technique of forming karma.
These findings of occult investigation throw remarkable light on an
utterance Kant made as though instinctively. He said that the two
things that inspired the greatest wonder in him were the starry
heavens above and the moral law within. These are apparently two
things, but in fact they are one and the same. Why does a feeling of
grandeur, of reverent awe, come over us when we look up into the
starry heavens? It is because without our knowing it the feeling of
our soul's home awakens in us. The feeling awakens: Before you
came down to earth to a new incarnation you yourself were in those
stars, and out of the stars have come the highest forces that are
within you. Your moral law was imparted to you when you were dwelling
in this world of stars. When you practice self-knowledge you can
behold what the starry heaven bestowed upon you between death and a
new birth — the best and finest powers of your soul. What we
behold in the starry heavens is the moral law that is given us from
the spiritual worlds, between death and a new birth — the best
and finest powers of our soul. What we behold in the starry heavens
is the moral law that is given us from the spiritual worlds, for
between death and a new birth we live in these starry heavens. A man
who longs to discover the source of the highest qualities he
possesses should contemplate the starry heavens with feelings such as
these. To one who has no desire to ask anything, but lives his life
in a state of dull apathy — to him the stars will tell nothing.
But if one asks oneself, “How does there enter into me that
which is never connected with my bodily senses?” and then
raises his eyes to the starry heaven, he will be filled with the
feeling of reverence and will know that this is the memory of man's
eternal home. Between death and rebirth we actually live in the
starry heavens.

We have asked how our astral body is built up anew in the spiritual
world, and the same question can be asked about our etheric body.
This body, too, we cannot help destroying during our life, and again
we must obtain from elsewhere the forces enabling us to build it up
again, to make it fit to perform its work for the whole man during
life.

There were long, long stretches of time in human evolution on earth
when man was unable to contribute anything at all towards ensuring
that his etheric body would be equipped with good forces in the next
incarnation. Then man still had within him a heritage from times when
his existence on earth began. As long as the ancient clairvoyance
continued, there still remained in man forces that at death had not
been used up, reserve forces, as it were, by means of which the
etheric body could again be built up. But it lies in the very essence
of human evolution that all forces eventually pass away and must be
replaced by new ones. Today we have reached a point when man must do
something himself in order that his etheric body may be built up
again. Everything that we do as a result of our ordinary moral ideas,
whatever response we make to a religion on the earth, limited as it
may be to a particular people, with all this we pass into the
planetary system and from there draw the forces for building up our
astral body. There is only one sphere through which we pass without
drawing from it these particular forces — the Sun sphere
itself. For it is out of the Sun sphere that our etheric body must
draw the forces enabling it to be built up again.

Conditions in pre-Christian times were such that as a man rose by
stages into the spiritual world he took with him part of the forces
of the etheric body, and these reserve forces enabled him to draw
from the Sun what he needed for building his etheric body in a new
incarnation. Today this has changed. It now happens more and more
frequently that man remains unaffected by the forces of the Sun. If
he fails to do what is necessary for his etheric body by filling his
soul with a content that can draw from the Sun the forces required
for the rebuilding of this etheric body, he passes through the Sun
sphere without being affected by it.

Now the influence that can be felt to emanate from one particular
religious denomination on earth can never impart to the soul what is
necessary in order that existence may be possible in the Sun sphere.
What we can instill into our etheric body, what we then need in order
that the soul's sojourn in the Sun sphere may be fruitful —
this can come only from the element that flows through all the
religions of mankind in common. What is this? If you compare the
different religions of the world — and it is one of the most
important anthroposophical tasks to study the core of truth in the
different religions — you will find that these religions were
always right in their way, but right for a particular people, for a
particular epoch. They imparted to this people, to this epoch, what
it was essential for this people and epoch to receive. In point of
fact we know most about those religions that were able to serve their
particular time and people by clinging egoistically to the form in
which they originally issued from the fount of religious life.

For more than ten years now we have been studying the religions, but
it must be realized that once there had to be given to humanity an
impulse transcending that of the single religions and embracing
everything to which they had pointed. How did this come to be
possible? It became possible through a religion in which there was no
single trace of egoism. The supremacy of this religion lies in the
fact that it did not limit itself to one people and one epoch.
Hinduism, for instance, is an eminently egoistic religion, for a man
who is not a Hindu cannot be received into it. This religion is
specially adapted for the Hindu people, and the same applies to other
territorial religions; their original greatness lay in the fact that
they were adapted to particular earthly conditions. Those who do not
admit that the religions were adapted to particular conditions, but
maintain that all religious systems have emanated from one
undifferentiated source, can never acquire real knowledge.

To speak only of unity amounts to saying that salt, pepper, paprika
and sugar are on the table, but we are not concerned with each of
them individually. What we are looking for is the unity that is
expressed in these different substances. Of course, one can speak
like this, but when it is a question of passing on to practical
reality, of using each substance appropriately, the differences
between them will certainly be apparent. Nobody who uses these
substances will claim that there is no different, then just put salt
or pepper instead of sugar into your coffee or tea, and you will soon
find out the truth! Those who make no real distinction between the
several religions, but say that they all come from the same source,
are making the same kind of blunder.

If we wish to know how a living thread runs through the different
religions towards a great goal, we must seek to understand this
thread, and study and value of each religion for its particular
sphere. This is what we have been doing for the last ten years in our
Middle-European Section of the Theosophical Society. A beginning
has been made towards discovering the nature of a religion that has
nothing to do with differences in humanity, but only with the
essential human as such, without distinction of color, race, and so
forth. What form has this taken? Can it really be said that we have a
“national” religion such as is found among the Hindus or
the Jews? If we were to worship Wotan we should be in the same
position as the Hindus. But we do not worship Wotan. The West has
acknowledged the Christ, and Christ was not a Westerner, but an alien
with respect to His lineage. The attitude to Christ that the West has
adopted is not an egoistic or nationalistic adherence to a creed. The
domain touched upon here cannot, of course, be exhaustively dealt
with in a single lecture. It is only possible to speak of particular
aspects, and one aspect is that the attitude adopted by the West to
its professed religion has been absolutely unegoistical.

The supremacy of the Christ Principle is shown in another way, too.
Think of a congress where learned representatives of the different
religions have gathered with the aim of comparing the various systems
of religion quite impartially. To such a congress I should like to
put the question, “Is there any religion on earth in which one
and the same saying means something different when made from two
different sides?” This is actually what occurs in Christianity.
Christ Jesus speaks profound words in the Gospel when He says to
those around Him, “In all of your there is Divinity; are you
then not Gods?” He says with all power and authority, “Ye
are gods!”
(John 10:34).
Christ Jesus means by these words
that in every human breast lies a spark that is Divine. This spark
must be kindled in order that it may be possible to say, “Be as
the gods.” A different and indeed exactly opposite effect is
the aim of words spoken by Lucifer when he approaches man in order to
drag him down from the realm of the Gods, “Ye shall be as God”
(Genesis 3:5)
The meaning here is entirely different. The same
utterance is made at one time in order to corrupt humanity at the
beginning of the descent into the abyss, and at another time as a
pointer to the supreme goal!

Look for the same thing in any other denominational creed, and the
one utterance or the other may be found, but never both. Close
examination will show what depth of meaning lies in the few words
that have just been spoken. The fact that these significant
utterances have become an integral part of Christianity shows clearly
that what is really important is not the mere content of the words,
but the Being who utters them. Why is it so? It is because
Christianity is working to achieve the fulfillment of the principle
that gives expression to its very core, namely, that there is not
only kinship among those related by physical descent, but among all
mankind. There is something that holds good without distinction of
race, nationality or creed, and reaches beyond all racial traits and
all epochs of time. Christianity is so intimately connected with the
soul of man because what it can bestow need not remain alien to any
man. This is not yet admitted all over the earth, but what is true
must ultimately prevail.

Men have not yet reached the stage of realizing that a Buddhist or a
Hindu need not reject Christ. Just think what it would mean if some
serious thinker were to say to us, “You who are followers of
Christ ought not to maintain that all denominations and creeds can
acknowledge Him as their supreme goal. In so doing you give
preference to Christ, and you are not justified in making such a
statement.”

If this were said, we should have to answer, “Why are we not
justified? Is it because a Hindu might also demand that veneration be
paid only to his particular doctrines? We no desire whatever to
deprecate those doctrines; we honor them as highly as any Hindu.
Would a Buddhist be justified in saying that he may not acknowledge
Christ because nothing is said to this effect in His scriptures? Is
anything essential at stake when a truth is not found in particular
writings or scriptures? Would it be right for a Buddhist to say that
it is against the principles of Buddhism to believe in the truth of
the Copernican theory of the universe, for no mention of it is made
in His books? What applied to the Copernican theory applies equally
to the findings of modern spiritual-scientific research concerning
the Christ-being, namely, that because He has nothing to do with any
particular denomination, the Christ can be accepted by a Hindu or an
adherent of any other religion. Those who reject what spiritual
science has to say about the Christ impulse in relation to the
religious denominations simply do not understand what the true
attitude to religion should be.”

Perhaps some day the time will come when it will be realized that
what we have to say about the nature of the Christ impulse and its
relation to all religious denominations and world-conceptions speaks
directly to the heart and soul, as well as endeavoring to deal
consistently with particular phases of the subject. It is not easy
for everyone to realize what efforts are made to bring together
things that can lead to the true understanding of the Christ impulse
needed by man in the present cycle of his existence. Avowal of the
belief in Christ has nothing fundamentally to do with any particular
religion or religious system. A true Christian is simply one who is
accustomed to regard every human being as bearing the Christ
principle in himself, who looks for the Christ principle in a
Chinese, a Hindu, or whoever he may be. In a man who avows his belief
in Christ is founded the realization that the Christ impulse is not
confined to one part of the earth. To imagine it as confined would be
a complete fallacy. The reality is that since the Mystery of
Golgotha, Paul's proclamation to the region with which he was
connected has been true — Christ died also for the heathen.
Humanity must learn to understand that Christ did not come for one
particular people, and particular epoch, but for all the peoples of
the earth, for all of them!

Christ has sown His spirit-seed in every human soul, and progress
consists in the souls of men becoming conscious of this.

In pursuing spiritual science we are not merely elaborating theories
or amassing a few more concepts for our intellects, but we meet
together in order that our hearts and souls may be affected. If in
this way the light of understanding can be brought to bear upon the
Christ impulse, this impulse itself will eventually enable all men on
earth to realize the deep meaning of Christ's words, “When
two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the
midst of them.” Those who work together in this spirit find the
bridge that leads from soul to soul. This is what the Christ impulse
will achieve over the whole earth. The Christ impulse itself must
constitute the very life of our groups.

Occultism reveals that if we feel something of the reality of the
Christ impulse, a power has penetrated into our souls that enables
them to find the path through the Sun sphere after death and makes it
possible for us to receive a healthy etheric body in the next
incarnation. We can only assimilate spiritual science in the right
way by receiving the Christ impulse into ourselves with deep
understanding. Only this will ensure that our etheric body will be
strong and vigorous when we enter a new incarnation. Etheric bodies
will deteriorate more and more if men remain in ignorance of Christ
and His mission for the whole of earth revolution. Through
understanding the Christ-being we shall prevent this deterioration of
the etheric body and partake of the nature of the Sun. We shall
become fit to receive forces from the sphere where Christ came to the
earth. Since the coming of Christ we can take with us from the earth
the forces that lead us into the Sun sphere. Then we can return to
the earth with forces that in the next incarnation will make our
etheric body strong. If we do not receive the Christ impulse, our
etheric body will become less and less capable of drawing from the
Sun sphere the forces that build and sustain it, enabling it to work
in the right way here on the earth. Earthly life is really not
dependent upon theoretical understanding, but upon our being
permeated through and through with the effects of the Event of
Golgotha. This is what is revealed by genuine occult research.

Occult research also shows us how we can be prepared to receive the
physical body. The physical body is bestowed upon us by the Father
principle. It is through the Christ impulse that we are able to
partake of the Father principle in the sense of the words, “I
and my Father are one”
(John 10:30).
The Christ impulse leads us to the divine powers of the Father.

What is the best result that can be achieved by spiritual deepening?
One could imagine someone among you going out after the lecture and
saying at the door, “I have forgotten every single word of it!”
That would, of course, be an extreme case, but it would really not be
the greatest calamity. For I could imagine that such a person does
nevertheless take with him a feeling resulting from what he has heard
here, even though he may have forgotten everything! It is this
feeling in the soul that is important. When we are listening to the
words we must surrender ourselves wholly in order that our souls
shall be filled with the great impulse. When the spirit-knowledge we
acquire contributes to the betterment of our souls, then we really
have achieved something. Above all, when spiritual science helps us
to understand our fellow men a little better, it has fulfilled its
function, for spiritual science is life, immediate life. It is not
refuted or confirmed by disputation or logic. It is put to the test
and its value determined by life itself, and it will establish itself
because it is able to find human beings into whose souls it is
allowed to enter.

What could be more uplifting than to know that we can discover the
fount of our life between death and rebirth. We can discover our
kinship with the whole universe! What could give us greater strength
for our duties in life than the knowledge that we bear within us the
forces pouring in from the universe and must so prepare ourselves in
life that these forces can become active in us when, between death
and rebirth, we pass into the spheres of the planets and of the Sun.
One who truly grasps what occultism can reveal to him about man's
relation to the world of the stars can say with sincerity and
understanding the prayer that might be worded somewhat as follows,
“The more conscious I become that I am born out of the
universe, the more deeply I feel the responsibility to develop in
myself the forces given to me by a whole universe, the better human
being I can become.” One who knows how to say this prayer from
the depths of the soul may also hope that it will become in him a
fulfilled ideal. He may hope that through the power of such a prayer
he will indeed become a better and more perfect man. Thus what we
receive through true spiritual science works into the most intimate
depths of our being.